Her Doubts
by Durriken
Summary: Spiritual successor to 'Her Tendencies' set four years in the future. Drabble, drabble, there be some babble.


**A/N**: I have _got_ to move away from Helen. And eventually I will, most likely with the next story, but not right now.

**Her Doubts**

* * *

He knew he was caught the moment he closed the door and that haunting click echoed behind him.

"….Even though the living room was darker than a tar pit, even though his skill at sneaking around had progressed to an otherworldly level through years of tireless practice, this was a harsh lesson that he would have to learn yet again, namely the limits of his own mortality, that there simply existed those who were better him, and would continue to be better than him until they breathed their last—"

"And you'll be breathing _your_ last if you don't get back in her, buster," came a voice that dripped with disapproval.

Like a subservient robot, Dash removed his leading foot from the bottom stair, pulled a one-eighty with his leg raised, lowered it, and proceeded rigidly back toward the middle of the room. Across from the door was a chair, situated as if in wait for just this moment. And who happened to be sitting in that chair? Who sat there with their arms and legs crossed, brow furrowed, and lips curled with an impending scolding?

"Heeeeey, mom," Dash began with enough caution to suggest he were dealing with a lioness about to pounce, and he tried angling himself on his good foot. Fastest thing this side of the coast he may be, his mother's speed-of-stretch (S.O.S) outstripped his ignition by a country mile; she'd have her arms double wrapped around his legs and dragging him back before he got the first step out. Still, he was never one to give up without trying. "Fancy meeting you here, in your _own_ house, I, uh… I mean, what a coincidence, right?"

The only source of light leaked in through the slatted blinds, illuminating her face with a horror movie-esque level of intensity. He had to admit, her glower, while not quite the inducer of bedwetting nightmares it used to be back in his younger years, it was still a force to be reckoned with. Made his skin prickle uncomfortably and he flinched.

Apparently, that was the reaction his mother had desired to see, because she scoffed right after, uncrossing her legs and crossing them the other way, giving her aloft foot an idle flick.

"It seems that with every new year you survive being taken out by me for your crazy antics, you also lose a meter of your common sense," she said, her words harsh like the lash of a whip. When she leaned forward imposingly, arms still crossed, Dash's gaze dripped down the curve of her neck and straight into the ample cleavage her robe was showing off. Fortunately, by the time his mother finished shaking her head in disappointment, he had honed in on her face instead. "Fourteen and you just think you're cock of the walk, don'cha?"

That term was so hilariously parental that Dash had to feign a sudden coughing fit to keep from laughing. If it didn't catch him an elastic slap, then his punishment for sneaking out would surely be doubled. "I d-don't," he told her earnestly, thudding himself over the chest, "really, mom, I just—"

"You _just_ thought I wouldn't notice, didn't you?" she interrupted haughtily, inclining her head to catch more of the light and increase the already foreboding aura surrounding her. "Well, the jig's up, kiddo. Although you get points for trying to narrate your way up the stairs, that was pretty clever—you get points."

It was the smallest of silver linings but Dash wouldn't be Dash if he didn't reach for it anyway. "Enough points to maaaaybe sorrrrta get you to pretend like this never happened?" he asked hopefully, pulling out his most heart-wrenching momma's boy face, the face that always worked.

"Not on your life, sport."

Except when it didn't. He almost cursed. Almost. He subverted it with a defeated snap of his fingers instead, looking surly.

"Buuuuut," his mother sang teasingly, "maybe we could come to an… agreement, of sorts," and Dash looked up, a faded glint of hope resonating in his blue pupils. Now she was sitting back, reclining comfortably with the knowledge that she practically had him around her finger, and Dash couldn't deny that she did. If his dad found out about his late night reentry, a blisteringly sore bottom and loss of TV privileges would be the least of his problems. Right now, his mother and all her radiant benevolence, she held his fate in her palm. And she knew it.

In the back of Dash's mind, as his mother motioned to a chair opposite her with an altogether exaggerated flourish of her wrist, he had to wonder if his mother was enjoying this. In the past, she had this tendency to relish moments where she got to punish him, whether she carried through or not, and right now, as her scornful scowl from before morphed into this snide little grin, he couldn't help but sweat as he slowly sank into the indicated chair—

"No, not there," she told him, and Dash froze mid-fall, looking terribly constrained. "_There_."

Dash blinked, still hovering like he were hesitant about sitting on a public toilet. _There_ was… well, it was nothing but a patch of carpet in front of her. Surely that couldn't be right. Could it? Unsure, he glanced at his mother to see her leaning to one side on her elbow and pointing with a slender finger.

So it could.

_What the heck?_

Thoughts muddled, confusion meter about to bust off the mental wall of his well-being, Dash fell into his designated 'seat' and sat cross-legged in wait, wholly aware of the fact that his mother now had the higher ground, that when he lifted his head his eyes had to travel up the length of her exposed leg and over the satin sash cinched around her thin waist, cresting her bust to finally meet those sensual brown eyes head-on.

"So, buster, where were you?"

_Straight to the point, huh? _Dash thought, jaw tensing. "I waaaaas… at a friends house," he said, deciding to keep it short and simple.

His mother's expression didn't change. Although her head did tilt forward a little, enough for the scarce light to catch that resplendent auburn bob of hers. "A friend's house," she repeated softly, with a funny smirk. "Boyfriend or girlfriend? Depending on your answer we might have a more dire issue to discuss."

"I'm gonna go with neither," replied Dash, not wanting to push his luck and laugh, choosing instead to hunch a shoulder. "It was just this stupid party thing, nothing big…."

"But big enough for you sneak out, hm?"

"Um, yeah," Dash said without thought, as though the answer could have been seen by a blind person, "they were offering free nachos, mom. _Free_ nachos, do you understand what I'm—where's the alternative there? How could I say no?" he wondered, lifting both hands as if to weigh the options he had wrestled with. "Lessee here"—he turned to the left hand with a fond smile—"a night with unlimited nachos and that delicious jalapeño butter cheese, orrrr"—he turned to the right, grimacing—"a night with no nachos, no cheese, and no hope."

His left hand hit the ground with a dull thud, the right one propelled high in the air.

"Clearly I made the smart choice, and if you were on my side, you'd agree with—_ouch_!"

When she extended her leg and flicked him over the forehead with her big toe, it was just as clear that she was not on his side.

"You're one astonishingly hard-headed kid, you know that?" she questioned, resting her chin in the palm of her hand and glancing down at him.

"I know you're one heavy-footed mom," Dash answered ruefully, rubbing where she'd flicked him.

To that, Helen's eyes glinted with something that Dash couldn't quite place but made him nervous regardless. Not that he wasn't pleasantly pleased with the way things were going thus far, as usually his mother would have already admonished him and sent him to bed with a very real promise to inform his father of whatever stupid thing he had done the next morning—so to be still be in her presence now with little to no threat of being snitch on, it was almost enough to give Dash hope for a better tomorrow.

That being said, the way she was looking at him like a cat in the middle of batting around a ball of yarn… just what she was planning?

"I'm heavy-footed, and your father is heavy-_handed_," she reminded him with trace amounts of some easily won victory seeping into her tone, and Dash blanched. There it was, the genesis of the killing blow; he should have known better. "So tell me, which of us would you prefer to be dealing with right now?"

The answer leapt from Dash's lips almost before she could finish the question: "You."

She nodded, expecting as much, and settled further into her chair. "You would much rather I be the one to punish you, then," she surmised, and Dash caught himself halfway into a firm nod, suddenly looking wary.

"That's…" he began hesitantly, fully aware that his mother had begun to slowly rotate her foot a few inches from his face. "I m-mean, I'd—I'd rather _not_ be punished. By anyone. I-if that's an option or anything—"

"It isn't," she responded loftily, yet with all the finality of a door being slammed in Dash's face. "The only choice you have is who punishes you, me or your father."

"That's still not really much of a choice but okay," Dash mumbled under his breath, adding in louder tones, "What's my, uh… punishment going to be, mom?"

Even if he was still going to be punished, there was still plenty to be joyous about, Dash figured. For one, it was his mother dolling it out, and not for nothing, but she was more the talkative type, less hands on and more delegation; the last time she had punished him consisted of Dash doing chores about the neighborhood for couple weeks. Last time his dad had punished him, he couldn't sit straight for a couple weeks, had his entire homeroom thinking he played for the same team.

Not cool.

What _was_ cool, however, was this reprieve from heaven. Whatever command or ask she had waiting on her tongue for him to do, he would gladly do it. Anything.

"Do you still like my feet, Dash?"

The most simplistic look fell over Dash's face and he merely stared at his mother. Did he… what?

He dug deep in his ear with a pinky, jiggled it about for a few seconds, then popped it free. There was nothing there, his ears were clean. So that quite clearly meant that there was some other problem plaguing Dash if he thought for one second that he had heard his mother correctly. Because he couldn't have. No way. Not a chance. In fact, there were so many reasons _why_ it couldn't be what she asked that he started chuckling.

Not that his laughter lasted long when he felt something warm and fleshy press itself to his mouth, effectively silencing him. He didn't know what it was or what had happened, only that he was now inhaling this faintly sweet aroma with the barest hints of something musky that he couldn't quite place. It was heady, somewhat overwhelming yet oddly arousing at the same time; he couldn't remember ever smelling anything like this.

"Did you know you, Dash… that you used to play with my feet when you were younger?" his mom asked playfully. "Oh yeah," she said to his bewildered expression, "back when you were six or seven, somewhere around that age, you were this oddball kid with a fascination over my feet. I'd shoo you away, of course, but then I'd turn around or go back to reading and there you'd be, trying to lick my toes or else rubbing your cheek against my heels like you had an itch. It was kind of cute, you were so addicted, you would help me pick out my polish and everything…." A wistful, almost longing inflection had infiltrated her tone, but then she chuckled, waving a hand, "But you eventually grew out of it, hm. So, does this bring back any memories?" she wondered with a teasing smile.

Did messing around with her feet bring back any memories? No. Dash could honestly say it didn't, not that he was trying very hard to dredge up the long forgotten when he was still trying to figure out where in the world this intoxicating scent wafting under his nostrils was coming fro—

Oh.

Ohhhh.

Her foot. That's what it was, that's where the scent was emanating from. She had the underside of her toes mashed against his lips.

"Mmmph! Wurrrgh fuh gnnnt shu drrngh?"

Every single word came out muffled beyond recognition against her but the gist got across fine and his mother giggled, pulling her foot back and flexing her toes. "Oh, come on, like you didn't enjoy that," she said regally, "I was just giving you what you enjoyed back then. Weren't they nice and soft? It's this new lotion I'm trying, it's supposed to rejuvenate the skin, leave it irresistibly smooth…."

Had this been anybody else—absolutely _anybody—_Dash would have forgotten all his morals and sense of self-respect and given into the furious hurricane of lust raging about in his groin. The feel of his mother's toes were like silk against his skin, the way she cutely scrunched them over his lips, almost giving him enough to glean a taste—but he held back, he kept himself in check, which was an impressive feat that left him sitting there with a very painful tent erected over the front of his pants and his nostrils pining to imbibe more of her foot's tangy effluence.

"It was o-okay," Dash finally muttered, and he felt his face flare up when his mother laughed behind a hand she quickly brought to her mouth. Sure, he didn't sound convincing in the slightest, but he had to at least try and save some face. "Alright, alright, c-can we just…" He made a rushing motion with his hand, now desperately wanting to get upstairs for an entirely different reason. "My punishment and… and stuff…."

"And… stuff," his mother repeated slowly, probably resisting with great difficulty the urge to mock him. "My little Dashie, still so dense…."

Past his chagrin, Dash felt a little indignation spark to life at her lighthearted insult. Him? Dense? In what way? How? "I ain't dense, mom," he told her, speaking with far less confidence than he meant and he cleared his throat. "I know what you're doing."

"Oh…." A sliver of curiosity lit up his mother's eyes and she angled herself closer, giving Dash her full, undivided attention. "Do you now? Then I guess that makes two of us who know what the other is doing," she said, giving her aloft foot a tantalizing flick.

It was definitely a mind game, it had to be, the way she responded, she probably didn't know anything and was just saying that to throw him off guard. Ignore it, that's what he should do, act like she didn't say anything, yeah. That would be the _smart_ thing to do. But Dash wasn't feeling all that smart in the moment, probably thanks in part to most of the blood being diverted from his brain to elsewhere….

"Well?" he chided, sporting, for the first time, a challenging smirk. His bottom had long since gone numb sitting on the floor but this was still a better alternative than what _could_ have happened, having this pseudo-battle with his mom. "Ladies first, mother dearest, what do you _think_ you know?"

"I think I know what you're trying to hide," his mother replied succinctly, without missing a beat, without even so much as a change in expression, and she sounded so sure in her assertion that Dash balked. "Oh, Dash, you didn't think you could keep that from me, did you?"

Nope, no way, nuh-uh, Dash thought fiercely, almost shaking his head. He might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but that bait was too large not to miss. She had no idea what he was really hiding, she was just trying to cold guess it, hoping he would out himself and then she would spin it to look like she knew all along.

_Not tonight, chick_.

"I'm not trying to hide anything, mom," he told her strongly, making sure to double-check his words before he spoke. Dash was well known for sticking his foot in his mouth—which was a saying he could no longer hear without picturing his mother's elegant toes curling around his lips. His left nostril twitched but he kept his gaze pinned on the auburn-haired woman across from him. She thought she was going to win this… this—whatever _this_ was, but she had another thing coming. Years of verbally dueling his sister, Violet, had given him near cat-like reflexes when it came to a clash of words. "If I _were_ hiding something, you wouldn't even get the inkling I was, I'm _that_ good."

It was a pretty confident boast, said with a blazing fortitude and topped with unbending nerve; it was the way Dash liked to present himself, as this unmovable mountain comprised of grit and coolness, and speaking like that, like he had finally found his backbone and put it back in place, felt like a return to himself after spending the last half hour or so dancing to his mother's beat. He ran some fingers through his blonde hair and scoffed, leaning back on his hand.

"Checkmate, mom," he said suavely.

Or at least, that's what he planned to say, and mighty arrogantly at that. He had put the words on his tongue, fully prepared to launch them with a victorious flair, but then his mother reached out with that leg that seemed to stretch forever even without the use of her powers and pressed the balls of her foot into his chest. It was a soft tap, obviously not meant to knock him over or disrupt him, though it didn't stop the words Dash had so meticulously lined up to flounder like a fish.

He stuttered, which would have been game over by itself, but then he felt her foot slowly drag itself down his front, her toenails scrapping with purpose over his abs now.

_Damn, damn, damn, what is she doing, where is she going with… no way… not that—she couldn't have noticed, and even if she did, there's no way she would actually—_

Despite Dash's mind screaming out reassurances, all of them were summarily obliterated when he felt her toes clamp down over the stringent bulge he was sporting in his pants. The groan that rose in his throat escaped without struggle and he winced, shuddering uncontrollably when she began to clench… and unclench… and clench again, rolling her foot in gentle circles and bringing Dash to a new level of hardness that straddled the fine line between pleasure and pain—

"So you weren't trying to hide _this_ from me?" she queried, and in that moment, Dash would swear his mother had switched over to being a villainous so tainted was her glowing smile. "When have you ever been able to keep anything from me, Dashiell Parr? I'm your mother, I know all of your tricks."

Listening was fast becoming a chore and Dash only caught little snippets of what his mother said, mostly because the rest of his concentration went toward trying to pry her prodding foot off his erection. Her technique was good, the way she used her toes in tandem with the arch of her foot, roughly stroking him up and down for that perfect amount of friction—it was far too good, this couldn't be her first time giving a footjob, and by the tell-all tremors shooting off in his groin, Dash knew he would be finished in more ways than one if this kept up.

And there was no in hell he was going to go down without a fight.

"Y-you're still sexy, mom," he told her, somehow managing to gain some coherency between the sputtered moans her motions brought out of him.

When she suddenly paused, in everything from mercilessly trying to bring him to a messy conclusion in his pants to outright breathing, Dash saw the way her eyes widened, he saw her jaw clench. Everything had grown so still and silent that Dash could audibly hear his heart thudding against his ribcage.

"What did you… just say?" Helen asked, and there was no trace of the amorous woman that had greeted Dash earlier when he walked in. There was no trace of anything, really; and that was slightly unnerving by itself, amplified only when she withdrew her foot, both feet actually, she had pulled them back up and now sat on them, looking out over her son with an expression that was beginning to show signs of some long buried anxiety.

There was no way Dash could have known the sensitivity level around bringing up a tender subject like this, but it was an issue he had long since known occupied a fairly good chunk of space in his mother's mind. And with the tension bleeding from his groin, blood was flowing as it should; his brain had oxygen, he could think straight again.

"I said," he began, scooting a bit closer to her chair and placing a hand on her thigh, not missing when she flinched, however slightly, "that you're still sexy."

There was something forlorn about the way Helen scoffed and softly rolled her eyes. "Kind of an inappropriate thing to say to your mom, don't you think, buster?"

The irony in her words was so strong it neared atomic levels of hypocrisy. "Mom, for a good chunk of the tenth year of my life I remember explicitly getting you off, sometimes once a day, sometimes twice a day. I think the inappropriate ship sailed awhile ago, don't _you_ think?"

"Ha, touché…."

The fact that she had relented with that gentle laugh instead of coming up with a way to twist his point around and imbed it knee-deep in his chest was all the assurance Dash needed to know that, yes, he had found something worth talking about. Even if she still decided to punish him after this, okay, fine, he _did_ deserve it, but this was important.

"But really, you've got nothing to worry about," Dash started, offering his sulking mother a wide, hopefully comforting grin. "You were sexy when I was ten and, oddly enough, through some freakish blessing bestowed upon you by the mother of fertility herself, you're _sexier_ now annnnd…." Dash paused, rubbing at his chin with a couple fingers. "Huh… someone listening out of context would swear I wanted to bang you or something. Silly, I know."

There was something coquettish about the way Helen offered up her own grin, perking out of her mood if only for a few seconds to utter, "You may well already have. I think we've done everything except proper insertion…" she said, glancing up in thought, trying to remember.

To Dash, his mother had this tendency to render herself absolutely cute by doing the most mundane of things unawares. Case in point, what she was doing now: staring toward the ceiling, face scrunched up with the effort of remembrance while poking her tongue out to the side. It was an adorable moment that made Dash simultaneously want to hug and kiss her.

"Basically, yeah," Dash agreed, subconsciously raking his nails over the bit of her thigh peeking from underneath the silk hem of her robe. "I don't subscribe to the notion that our relationship"—he motioned between his mother and himself—"is normal by any definition of the word, 'cause I'm fairly certain I suffer from a small bout of oedipus syndrome sans the hating my dad part. Still, factually, unequivocally, I know I _do_ love you and I _do_ feel like you haven't aged a second since the day I fingered you into a leaky mess after you tricked me into making that origami duck."

"It was a T-Rex, Dash," she corrected, and however slight, this caused the corner of Helen's mouth to lift in an honest attempt at an appreciative smile. "I would probably say you were in full-on flattery mode but that tent in your pants was impressively pitched….Doesn't take much to get you going, does it?" she niggled.

"Not when it comes to you, no," Dash said naturally, almost as if that should be been an obvious known. He was tracing small circles against her skin now, chewing over his next words very carefully. "Mom, you know…."

"Yes?"

"Those pancakes you make on the weekends? They're pretty dang tasty…."

Even though he wasn't looking at her, Dash could almost hear his mother's confusion, could mentally see the baffled look furrowing her brow.

"Oh. Okay, well, I… I'm glad you think so," she responded unevenly, and it was clear the sudden pivot into food had left her lost.

"I mean, you only make those pancakes on the weekends," Dash continued, tapping a beat over her thigh. "It's not an everyday occurrence, is it? Just a little weekend thing—but I think _because_ it's a weekend thing, that's what makes it so special, worth looking forward to, right? We might not talk about those pancakes everyday, maybe a word here or there, but we love 'em… we _really_ love 'em, and we show it when the weekend comes by eatin' the holy soul out of 'em."

Letting loose a sigh that puffed his cheeks, Dash ruffled his flyaway hair and stared directly up at his mom. She was staring back at him, and he could see the remnants of realization dawning over her face.

"I guess what I'm trying to say isssss… just 'cause something isn't sought after all the time, doesn't mean it's any less cared for or thought about—'cause we _love_ those pancakes, we all do. Might not talk about 'em as much as we probably should but we'd go crazy without those pancakes… and I'm pretty sure dad feels that way ten times over," Dash added with a smirk. "So you don't gotta worry, he still loves your pancakes, mom."

Helen rolled her eyes, then abruptly started to laugh in that distinctive tone Dash found so damn alluring. She lovingly tussled his hair, pretended to outright strangle him for a few seconds, then started playing the top of his head like a bongo drum.

"Um… mom?" he spoke, bemused by her odd flurry of movements.

"Hush, you. I'm happy," was all she said, was all she felt needed to be said, while moving to massaging the outer rim of his ears.

"Are you now?" Dash wriggled his ears; Helen giggled. "That's good to know 'cause I was thinking different when you started choking me."

"You know I love choking," she said slyly.

"Yeah, when _I'm_ doing it…."

* * *

A series of muffled footsteps thudded unevenly down the steps, mainly because Violet had the tendency to walk around virtually blinded when she first woke up and took forever rubbing sleep from her eyes. So when she hit the landing without rolling down for once, she figured it was going to be a good day.

Until she stumbled into the living room to see her mother passed out in her favorite armchair, head thrown back, mouth slightly askew, while, oddly enough, her brother sat on the floor with both her legs over his shoulders, just as equally knocked out and using her inner thigh as a pillow.

Paused halfway into rubbing her shin (she had bumped it on the coffee table four steps in), Violet straightened up, eyes drifting from her mom to Dash and back again. Then her lips parted in a vociferous yawn and she scratched at her bottom.

"I've got such an incestuous family it's freakin' unbelievable," she grumbled, stepping carefully to her brother. She knelt down in front of him, frowning somewhat and poking out her bottom lip. For a split second, when she lifted her hand, it looked like she might slap him—but then she only flicked out her pointing finger and jabbed him in the cheek. "So now we're playing favorites, huh? What, my thighs not thick enough for you? Tch… whatever," she muttered ruefully, glaring up at her mother's slumbering form before placing a kiss over Dash's cheek. "It's one night, don't get happy, you cow….Those lumps of potatoes you call thighs won't keep him long. He'll be back snuggling with me before long."

"Oh, really? Then this cow happily accepts your challenge," came a voice softer than velvet and more unsettling than any horror movie violet had ever seen.

She didn't want to look, she truly didn't, but it was like the ghost of some ethereal hand had taken her by the chin and turned her head up and to the side. When she saw her mother staring down at her with one widened eye, that domineering smile spread through his lips, Violet, like Dash prior, could tell she was about to learn an important life lesson centered around humble acceptance in the maternal face of defeat.

* * *

A/N: **#yearoftheauthor**


End file.
